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Plan to shame kerb crawlers

Convicted Kerb crawlers could be identified publicly as part of a council's radical plan to stamp out street prostitution in an inner-city suburb.

City of Vincent mayor Alannah MacTiernan said the council would introduce new measures - including mobile CCTV cameras, more street lighting and barricades - to make access less easy for kerb crawlers.

Highgate has long been a haunt of street sex workers and kerb crawlers but this activity has increased in recent months, prompting the council and police to consider tougher action.

Ms MacTiernan said the council had been inundated with complaints from residents who witnessed sex acts in their street and from women who had been approached by men wanting sex.

"Residents say they come home to find people conducting 'business' on their front porch," she said.

"Condoms get littered around the place and other related antisocial behaviour was going on."

The City of Vincent last month voted unanimously to spend $50,000 on a package of street lighting, a CCTV network and roadblocks, focusing on the Stirling Street and Bulwer Street areas of Highgate.

Ms MacTiernan said that she wanted the CCTV footage featuring the faces and vehicle licence plates of kerb crawlers to be released publicly in a bid to shame them and deter others.

"The sex workers have their own reasons for doing what they do but these men - who are perfectly able to have their needs met at a brothel - need to be targeted if street prostitution is to end," she said.

A police spokesman said officers dealt with complaints about prostitution and criminal behaviour in Highgate as they were received, but further action was being investigated.

Janelle Fawkes, from the Scarlet Alliance, Australia's peak sex worker organisation, said WA already had the most "draconian and extreme" laws and the new hardline approach would not work.

Ms Fawkes said many sex workers opted for street-based work rather than brothels because they could choose their hours of work, their prices and what services were offered.